


Five Ways Daniel Goes to Jail

by Catspaw



Series: Sixty-five Things [3]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-06
Updated: 2011-05-06
Packaged: 2017-10-19 01:42:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catspaw/pseuds/Catspaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of a bundle of 'five thing' challenges.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Ways Daniel Goes to Jail

Daniel is genuinely baffled by his propensity for getting thrown in the slammer. And normally slightly aggrieved by it as well. He's a law-abiding citizen (except for that one time back in the 80s, student high jinks and really, the whole thing was blown totally out of proportion). He pays his taxes. He parks his car legally. He observes traffic signals. He doesn't habitually brawl in bars. He's generally a reasonable kind of guy.

None of this seems to count for much off world. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time behind bars, mostly for what he considers fairly poor reasons. On Bedrosia, for example. Or when he tried to reclaim Chaka. Or when they tried to help that guy they met in the woods and ended up on Hadante.

Yep, over the years, he's gotten pretty used to being flung through a cell door to land sprawling on various insanitary surfaces and/or substances and hearing ringing steel, or the shooting of bolts, or the humming noise a force field generally makes.

This time is different.

He walks in.

He walks straight in, clangs the door shut behind him with all three keys on the _inside_ and refuses to leave until they listen to him.

It throws the powers that be into a ferment: on this Planet of the Paper-pushers, as Jack has not so fondly nicknamed it, it's totally inconceivable, as shocking and unexpected as an armed coup. They haven't got the bureaucratic wherewithal to deal with this. The all-important little piece of paper doesn't exist that could possibly cover this.

Nineteen hours later, the Committee caves. After emergency-this, and crisis-that, and special-powers-the-other, they decide they have no recourse but to give in. So they listen, albeit not very wholeheartedly, but still decline to let Jack go. _That_ all-important piece of paper doesn't exist either. So Daniel still refuses to come out, until they make it happen. Because really, there's nothing in the Minute Books, as he understands it, that says it can't.

Stalemate.

Except not so much, as the low voice clacking in Daniel's ear confirms that Sam and Teal'c will soon be in position and ready to move on his signal.

It turns out not to be necessary after all. Another couple of hours limp by: the Committee stares at Daniel. Daniel, feet spread and arms folded, stares implacably right back through the bars. They only stir when a newcomer barrels through the door, leaving it ajar behind him, infringing at least three regulations Daniel knows of in the process. The Chair has arrived.

A hasty confab with the Committee members, who are clearly shaken by its content, and the Chair turns to Daniel and says, "This is most irregular. You are to leave at once."

"And Jack?"

"Has been released into your custody, on condition that you leave immediately."

Daniel grins mirthlessly. "Do you have that in writing?"

Wordlessly, the Chair waves a minion forward. In one hand, he's clutching one foolscap sheet, neatly typewritten, in his other, four carbon copies. All signed, countersigned, dated and sealed.

"Read them through, please."

The minion hands him a pen and murmurs, "You must sign here, here, here and here. On the original, and all the copies."

Daniel scans them with satisfaction. They're all identical; all seem watertight. In the subsection, 'Reason for Commutation of Sentence', someone has typed in large, red capitals, "ICONOCLAST". Which, he thinks with amusement as he signs with a flourish, has an irony all its own.

The minion all but snatches the papers out of his hand. "And now you must leave, at once."

Through the still partway-open door, Daniel spots Jack, standing between two guards. His expression is mutinous, lips clamped tight shut against god knows what flippancy - thankfully.

"Very well," Daniel says calmly, and unlocks the door and walks out. He tosses the keys to the Chair. To Jack he says, "Let's go."

"No argument from me," Jack replies, glaring at his guards, who gaze woodenly back, before he and Daniel turn on their heels and march out the door.

"Will this agreement hold?" Jack mutters under his breath as they walk, under close supervision, to rejoin Teal'c and Carter. "I have to tell ya, I've got that five alarm, prickly feeling at the back of my neck."

"It'll hold," Daniel replies confidently. "It was in quintuplicate. But please don't say anything more about rules being made to be broken until we get home."


End file.
